Trading Card Games of Our Generation

By Orlando Mabalot

Trading Cards have been around us ever since the mid-1990s and continue to impact pop culture.

Yu-Gi-Oh is a Japanese Manga franchise spawning multiple anime and manga spinoffs, four movies and a best-selling Trading Card Game. Magic the Gathering is a card game depicting planeswalkers battling each other.

Even today, people in this community at all ages still play these games. Ever since trading card games were introduced in 1993, people from all over the world and San Joaquin County buy trading cards and play against each other in regular card matches.

Every day students are seen not only playing Yu-Gi-Oh but also Magic: The Gathering, Dragon Ball, and some other card games so a closer look at these card game was needed why students play these trading card games or buy cards every day before class or during their break time.

The students get cards from local stores such as Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble and GameStop. Target is just a walk from so students might go there and obtain Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic the Gathering cards.

“I need three Effect Vailer cards in order to negate monster effects,” said student Ricky Tapia.

Delta College Student Rohan Sarup said that he got his “Yu-Gi-Oh Code of the Duelist cards at Aragon’s Den” or Dragon’s Den in Stockton.

Students, including Elijah Richards, also get cards online. Richards said

“I purchased my cards from a website called TCGPlayer.com,” said Richards.

Rohan says he’s been playing Yu-Gi-Oh for over “four years” now. Also, he apparently has some many cards that “I lost track after 2000” cards.

In early April, a group of students played Yu-Gi-Oh in the Delta College cafeteria lounge.

Saloman Martinez, a student who plays Magic: The Gathering and he says he’s been playing the game for over “six years.”

“I don’t have any Yu-Gi-Oh nor Pokemon cards but I do have over “10,000 Magic: The Gathering cards,” he said.

Besides trading card games, students are also interested in adult card games such as poker.

“I play poker and blackjack,” Saloman said.

When asked if there’s any other card games he likes Rohan says “no.”

It’s common for players to get as many cards as possible in order to get really strong and crush opponents on the playing field just like in Yu-Gi-Oh where duelists fight for control for glory and power until one player remains victorious. A duelist is a standard Yu-Gi-Oh trading card player.

﻿

Magic the Gathering serves as the first trading card game ever created in 1993 with other card game such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon thought according to Wikipedia, some card games didn’t last long such as Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft. According to websites such as Wikipedia and quora.com state that ever since 1993, Magic the Gathering has over 17,000 cards and is one of the most successful card games. While Yu-Gi-Oh has over 20,000 cards wile Pokémon having over 10,000 cards.

Though some people think Magic the Gathering is the most superior of all of the modern trading games of this era, but people think Yu-Gi-Oh is the most popular due it being the main subject of multiple fanfictions, fan made real life YouTube videos, and other YouTube videos about product openings and deck profiles. Sure, Magic: The Gathering has those but as much as fan made real life videos.

Overall, thanks to social media and overall popularity, trading card games continue to become an impact on today’s society.

From the raging manga franchise, Yu-Gi-Oh, to the trading card game adaption of the beloved video game franchise, Pokémon, to the first trading game to come in existence, Magic: The Gathering, Trading card games, continue to play a part in this generation.